Weeds by the Wall Part 3

What shall I do? what can I do?"

Said I to Love: "What must I do, All in the summer nooning?"

Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."

Said Love to me: "Go woo.

If she be 'mid the rakers, O!

Among the harvest acres, O!

While every breeze brings scents of hay, Just hold her hand and not take 'nay,'

All in the summer nooning."

III.

With song and sigh and cricket cry The day had mingled rest; And Heaven a cas.e.m.e.nt opened wide Of opal, whence, like some young bride, The Twilight leaned, all starry-eyed, A moonflower on her breast.

Said I to Love: "What must I do?

What shall I do? what can I do?"

Said I to Love: "What must I do, All in the summer gloaming?"

Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."

Said Love to me: "Go woo.

Go meet her at the trysting, O!

And, 'spite of her resisting, O!

Beneath the stars and afterglow, Just clasp her close and kiss her so, All in the summer gloaming."

DROUTH.

I.

The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike Lift shields of sultry bra.s.s; the teasel tops, Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops, The locusts cymbal; now gra.s.shoppers beat Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,-- Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,-- An empty wagon rattles through the heat.

II.

Where now the blue, blue flags? the flow'rs whose mouths Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint, That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South's Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint At coming showers that the rainbows tint?

Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows?-- The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves; The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves; The freckled touch-me-not and forest-rose.

III.

Dead! dead! all dead besides the drouth-burnt brook, Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled gra.s.s.

Where waved their bells,--from which the wild-bee shook The dew-drop once,--gaunt, in a nightmare ma.s.s, The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pa.s.s, Thirsty and lean, seeking some meagre spring, Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool, From morn till evening wearily wandering.

IV.

No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake The sleepy hush; to let its music leak Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake: Only the green-blue heron, famine weak,-- Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,-- Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too, False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air; While overhead,--still as if painted there,-- A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.

BEFORE THE RAIN.

Before the rain, low in the obscure east, Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray; Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased, Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay Like some white spider hungry for its prey.

Vindictive looked the scowling firmament, In which each star, that flashed a dagger ray, Seemed filled with malice of some dark intent.

The marsh-frog croaked; and underneath the stone The peevish cricket raised a creaking cry.

Within the world these sounds were heard alone, Save when the ruffian wind swept from the sky, Making each tree like some sad spirit sigh; Or shook the clumsy beetle from its weed, That, in the drowsy darkness, bungling by, Sharded the silence with its feverish speed.

Slowly the tempest gathered. Hours pa.s.sed Before was heard the thunder's sullen drum Rumbling night's hollow; and the Earth at last, Restless with waiting,--like a woman, dumb With doubting of the love that should have clomb Her cas.e.m.e.nt hours ago,--avowed again, 'Mid protestations, joy that he had come.

And all night long I heard the Heavens explain.

THE BROKEN DROUTH.

It seemed the listening forest held its breath Before some vague and unapparent form Of fear, approaching with the wings of death, On the impending storm.

Above the hills, big, bellying clouds loomed, black And ominous, yet silent as the blue That pools calm heights of heaven, deepening back 'Twixt clouds of snowdrift hue.

Then instantly, as when a mult.i.tude Shout riot and war through some tumultuous town, Innumerable voices swept the wood As wild the wind rushed down.

And fierce and few, as when a strong man weeps, Great rain-drops dashed the dust; and, overhead, Ponderous and vast down the prodigious deeps, Went slow the thunder's tread.

And swift and furious, as when giants fence, The lightning foils of tempest went insane; Then far and near sonorous Earth grew dense With long sweet sweep of rain.

FEUD.

A mile of lane,--hedged high with iron-weeds And dying daisies,--white with sun, that leads Downward into a wood; through which a stream Steals like a shadow; over which is laid A bridge of logs, worn deep by many a team, Sunk in the tangled shade.

Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry; And in the sleepy silver of the sky A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand.

From point to point the road grows worse and worse, Until that place is reached where all the land Seems burdened with some curse.

A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung,-- On which the fragments of a gate are hung,-- Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt, A wilderness of briers; o'er whose tops A battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt, 'Mid fields that know no crops.

Fields over which a path, o'erwhelmed with burs And ragweeds, noisy with the gra.s.shoppers, Leads,--lost, irresolute as paths the cows Wear through the woods,--unto a woodshed; then, With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house, Where men have murdered men.

A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock, Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here, Are sinister stains.--One dreads to look around.-- The place seems thinking of that time of fear And dares not breathe a sound.